Eileen Healey

Eileen Mary Gregory Healey (11 September 1920 – 8 September 2010) was a British pharmacologist, filmmaker and mountaineer. She was known for filming the tragic 1959 all female expedition to Cho Oyu, that resulted in the deaths of Claude Kogan, Claudine van der Stratten and Ang Norbu. Healey was a pioneering alpinist for her era, noted for her success on granite climbs in the Mont Blanc range at a time when few women were attempting these peaks.

Biography Eileen Mary Gregory was born in Brighton on 11 September 1920. Her parents instilled her love of climbing through childhood holidays hill walking in Wales and the Lake District. At age 11, Healey began keeping a climbing journal. She would continue to contribute to it until she was 39, recounting climbs in England, Scotland, Norway, the Swiss Alps and the Himalayas.

She was a member of the women-only Pinnacle Club and the Ladies' Alpine Club, and became known for her skillful and competent climbs. The women's trip was heavily publicized and recognized to be the first expedition in mountaineering history consisting entirely of women and groundbreaking for the time. Healey brought her husband's 16mm camera along for the expedition to document the trip. Healey's footage would provide a valuable account of what transpired, and contained some of the last images of Claude Kogan and Claudine van der Stratten before their deaths.

Later life After Healey's return from Cho Oyu, she would continue to pursue her passion for climbing, as well as for sailing. Later, Healey and her family moved to Uganda, where she climbed Mount Kadam. After Idi Amin was ousted by a military coup, the Healey family returned to the United Kingdom.

In 2003, Healey reunited with Pem Pem Norgay, whom had joined the 1959 Cho Oyu expedition. In 2009, Healey's footage of the ill-fated expedition would be screened at the Kendal mountain festival in Cumbria, exactly fifty years after the initial expedition. In 2014, Healey's film of the Cho Oyu expedition was remastered into high definition for the BBC. Healey's amateur film of the expedition is considered an important early visual narrative of documentary filmmaking by women, and has been subject to extensive academic discourse.